But regardless of Cap’n Donald’s law-flouting noncompliance it is occasionally possible to obtain records, or at least emails, involving him by the simple expedient of getting them from the other side of the correspondence.3 And recently a friend of this blog got a small pile of emails between Mr. Don Duckworth and Los Angeles City Clerk staff, and you can read the whole set here on Archive.Org.4 And there’s pretty much interesting stuff in there, but tonight I’m focusing on just three items.

As you may be aware, the California Public Records Act requires the release of all requested public records unless some specified exemption to disclosure applies.1 However, it turns out that, according to §6254.5, if an agency releases exempt material to anyone they’ve automatically waived their right to withhold it from anyone else:
Notwithstanding any other law, if a state or local agency discloses a public record that is otherwise exempt from this chapter, to a member of the public, this disclosure shall constitute a waiver of the exemptions specified in Section 6254 or 6254.7, or other similar provisions of law.

But what happens if an agency releases the material by accident and then other people want it? In 2016 the California Supreme Court decided the issue in Ardon v. City of Los Angeles, holding that inadvertent disclosure didn’t waive exemptions. At that time, the court recognized the potential for abuse2 and warned:
Our holding that the inadvertent release of exempt documents does not waive the exemption under the Public Records Act must not be construed as an invitation for agencies to recast, at their option, any past disclosures as inadvertent so that a privilege can be reasserted subsequently. This holding applies to truly inadvertent disclosures and must not be abused to permit the type of selective disclosure section 6254.5 prohibits. The agency’s own characterization of its intent is not dispositive, just as it is not dispositive under the law of privilege.

A couple days ago I published a collection of Rena Leddy’s reports to the Board of Directors of the Fashion District BID. This is turning out to be an incredibly rich source of information, revealing, e.g., that a marketing consultant hired by the BID thinks, among other deeply stupid thoughts, that lobster rolls confuse Latinos. And today I have another gem, but, for good or for ill, this one’s more technical although no less interesting.

Perhaps you recall that Urban Place Consulting is working for the Fashion District coordinating the BID’s pending renewal with the City. I obtained UPC’s contract with the BID from Rena Leddy via the California Public Records Act, but she claimed that the chart showing the actual hourly rates of UPC bossboy Steve Gibson and his assorted flunkies was exempt from release because it was a trade secret. Then we spent three months arguing about it and everybody got lawyered up and eventually she gave in and sent me an unredacted copy of the contract showing how much money all the UPC folks were getting paid.

Categories

Random Post

Our YouTube Channel

Click here. See videos of BID Patrol operations, public meetings of the BIDs and committees, etc.

MK.org on Archive.org

Click here to see our collection on archive.org. Here you will find PDFs of all our publications, as well as photographs and other public records related to our mission.

Los Angeles BID Wiki

The Los Angeles BID Wiki will eventually collect and organize all of our information and understanding of BIDs in Los Angeles. Sadly this project is on hold due to time constraints. If you're interested in collaborating on it, you can drop me a line.